Australia's sluggish vaccine roll-out affecting virus battle

With under 7% of residents fully vaccinated, it lags far behind other OECD countries

A deserted Bondi Beach in Sydney yesterday. New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian said the state needed a vaccination rate of between 75 and 80 per cent to return to normality. Like other Australian states, however, it is nowhere near this target, having fully vaccinated just 6.6 per cent of the population. PHOTO: BLOOMBERG

Jonathan Pearlman‍ For The Straits Times In Sydney

Updated

Published

Jul 05, 2021, 05:00 AM

When Sydney's 5.4 million residents were forced into a citywide Covid-19 lockdown last week for the first time in more than a year, many suddenly abandoned their vaccine hesitancy and rushed to find a dose.

Images early last week showed thousands of people queueing for as long as four hours to receive a dose at the city's mass vaccination hub, located at the site used for the Sydney Olympics in 2000.

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